Mid Peninsula Neighborhoods: The best public schools in the middle peninsula seem to be Cupertino (especially the magnet schools), Palo Alto, and the Mission District in Fremont. Mountain View and Los Altos are slightly behind these districts, but put less pressure on the kids which I think is a good thing. See the California School Dashboard for school performance numbers.

Weather: The weather in Mountain View is great! It’s normally sunny with comfortable temperatures. I joke that we don’t have weather, we have climate. Every now an then it will get below freezing in the middle of a winter night. The temperature crosses 90F several times a year. It rains periodically between Nov-Apr… but the sun will often come out on the same day. Most of the year you can plan outdoor activities without concern that the weather is going to spoil your plans. If the weather in Mountain View is too boring, cool off 10-20 degrees on the coast by Half Moon Bay, head to Pacifica for some fog, or go inland and get baked in the central valley. If you need snow, head up to Lake Tahoe.

Transportation: I try to use mass transit when possible, so when I head up to SF I use Caltrain. I don’t have daily exposure to commute traffic since I walk or bike to work, but I understand traffic is pretty awful these days, especially 85 north in the morning, and 85 south in the afternoon. Google Maps is likely the best way to see how traffic is moving. The San Jose Airport (SJC) is more convenient than SFO when I can get flights there. SJC – AirportMonitor lets you watch flights in real-time. When we fly out of San Francisco Airport (SFO), we often use SkyPark Airport Parking. Sometimes fares out of Oakland Airport are cheaper than SJC or SFO. If you mostly use mass transit but need a car periodically check out Zipcars, Getaround, and Turo.

Do You Want to Live Here?: If you are thinking about moving to the bay area, the McCormack’s Relocation Guidesand/or Relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley could be useful books. The SFBay is a vibrant, multi-cultural area filled with interesting people who have come from all parts of the world, an active art and music scene, lots of great restaurants, and countless outdoors activities. Within a few hours drive in a car are wondrous destinations: wine country, Lake Tahoe (skiing, hiking, etc), rugged ocean coastline and beaches, and incredible parks like Yosemite. There is nowhere else on the planet that can match the SFBay area for high tech opportunities: a combination of world class universities, a critical mass of high tech companies, a culture of collaboration, and 70% of the world’s VC money. There is a dark side: the area’s materialism exemplified by the pursuit of wealth, and the busyness of people which make forming authentic communities difficult. On the other hand, I have noticed the materialism and pace of life which has characterized the SFBay has been spreading throughout the USA, even into the mid-west where there are not as many opportunities, and companies haven’t figured out that an accelerated life means companies need to be flexible. The cost of living in the SFbay is very high… mostly because of the high cost of housing though redfin might drop realtor fees. Some people have raised an alarm over price of homes, suggesting that housing is a bubble which is about to pop. Right now monthly rents are significantly cheaper than what mortgage payments would be for a similar home. My personal belief is that unless someone already owns a home in an expensive market, purchasing a house in the bay area does not make good financial sense at this time… but I could easily be wrong since I still can’t believe how much people are paying today. Pay in the bay area is a bit higher than other areas, see salary.com, payscale.com, salaryscout.com, or indeed.com for real data, but this doesn’t cover the added cost of housing. [Unless you are moving into the area from a location with equally high priced housing, you are going to be renting.] People from small cities or towns complain that buildings are packed to close together, there are too many people, and that house lots are measured in feet, not acres. People from large cities complain that the area is too spread out without adequate mass transit. The Bay area is very secularized, with less than 5% of the populate attending religious services each week. We are hopefully done with rolling blackout and liquification during earthquakes for awhile. For another take, a survey of people about best things about the bay area.